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Switching focus: Spain has progressed and its time has come

by Charles Fletcher

Following Spain’s plunge into recession in 2008, the country’s residential and commercial property markets experienced a crash that has lasted nearly a decade. More recently, a number of UK-based companies have made inroads into the Spanish property market and demonstrated that the uncertainty in the UK property market has pushed firms to invest in markets with ripe opportunities like Spain.

Spain’s recession was arguably a result of its incorporation into the European Union at the end of the 20th century, and its subsequent decision to join the euro zone. Joining the EU and the euro zone meant that Spain, a country with a history of high inflation and high interest rates, was suddenly able to borrow at dramatically-reduced interest rates, which sparked a property boom, often referred to as the “Spanish property bubble.”

However, having expanded by more than 3 percent in both 2015 and 2016, the Spanish economy is finally emerging from the debris. This places